|
In recent years, under the wave of going overseas, many domestic big brands have begun to seek development overseas with the help of various channels such as cross-border e-commerce and independent websites. Konka, a major domestic smart appliance brand, is one of them.
It is reported that Konka first came into contact with Shopee at the end of 2018. After a year of dormancy and talent discovery, it began to vigorously develop cross-border e-commerce in Southeast Asia in the second half of 2019, and achieved significant performance growth in July and August in the second half of 2020. During the 11.11 promotion, the number of orders on the entire site soared to more than 20 times that of October.
Konka, a well-known domestic brand, has continued its glory and achievements on the road of cross-border overseas expansion. There must be a secret to success behind this. What difficulties and pain points does Konka need to overcome in the process of going overseas? Is there any difficulty in settling and penetrating the local market? What are the development opportunities for Chinese brands overseas? What aspects should novice sellers pay special attention to when going to Southeast Asia? ... Konka has written unique answers to these enduring questions with its own experience. It is hoped that every cross-border seller can find inspiration from Konka's successful experience.
From a chance meeting to a familiar feeling, Konka and Southeast Asian giant Shopee join forces
The first step to a successful overseas expansion is the market. Unlike many sellers who prefer mature European and American markets, Konka chose Southeast Asia as the main track for its overseas expansion. The decision to launch the brand overseas must have been boosted by the huge development potential of the Southeast Asian market itself.
Niu Weidong, chairman of Konka Smart Appliances, believes that for any brand or platform, you need to seize the most critical 10 years in market development. For example, the most vigorous period of domestic e-commerce development was around 2011. Taking 2011 as the node, the 10 years before and after are the most critical 10 years. In Niu Weidong's view, the current infrastructure in Southeast Asia, including supporting facilities for e-commerce, may take another 1-2 years to reach the stage of 2011 in China, which is also the main reason why Konka chose the Southeast Asian market.
It is understood that when Konka entered Southeast Asia in 2018, it entered all e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia. According to Konka's sales data, Shopee's store ranked first among all platforms in 2019, and the daily sales of the same products on Shopee were several times that of other platforms. Therefore, Konka took Shopee as its main development platform and established a highly specialized team.
In the second half of 2019, Konka began to increase its efforts to develop cross-border e-commerce in Southeast Asia. Its performance increased in July and August in the second half of 2020. During the 11.11 promotion in 2020, the number of orders on the entire site suddenly soared to more than 20 times that of October.
Niu Weidong said that, in general, it was originally expected that it would take a longer time to achieve the current results, but the results of the cooperation with Shopee far exceeded imagination. From a chance encounter to a familiarity at first sight, the Shopee platform has brought too many surprises. In the future, he believes that Konka's growth rate on Shopee can be taken to a higher level.
As its brand expands overseas, Konka insists on pursuing a quality consumption route
The charm of overseas markets and cross-border industries lies in the fact that each market has unlimited possibilities. Not all brands can enter the market without any worries, nor does it mean that new sellers who start from scratch have no chance of success.
It is no coincidence that Konka, a well-known domestic brand, has joined hands with Shopee to venture into Southeast Asia, continuing and creating glory. In the process of brand expansion overseas, the company relies on the excellent product quality brought by a strong supply chain, correct brand expansion planning, and accurate understanding and use of Shopee's many cross-border marketing tools. The store's customer traffic has set new highs for several consecutive months, achieving an explosion of the brand from the back-end supply chain to the front-end operations, and continuously accumulating high store ratings.
Adhering to its own market positioning, insisting on the quality consumption route, and with the strong support of the localized platform, providing users with products with the highest "price ratio", this is the key to the success of Konka smart appliances.
Niu Weidong explains "price-performance ratio" as follows: that is, at the product level, performance, quality, appearance, price, purchase and sales services, etc. are used to simultaneously meet the multiple demands of consumers and shape the brand reputation.
It is understood that Konka adopts unified production standards all over the world and does not discriminate based on sales regions. Under the premise of ensuring quality and its own virtuous cycle, Konka appropriately lowers prices and provides brand products with higher price-performance ratios as much as possible to benefit all consumers. This is Konka's brand overseas policy.
Although the current consumption level in Southeast Asia is slightly different from that in China, based on Konka's experience in witnessing the development of the domestic economy and demand over the past few decades and the inevitable laws of economic development at the macro level, Niu Weidong believes that in the long run, consumers' requirements for product quality will continue to increase. Perhaps it will take a relatively "difficult" time to insist on the "price-performance ratio" now, but Konka has expectations for the potential of the Southeast Asian market and believes that at some point in the future, the market will surely burst into new opportunities.
How can Konka accurately grasp consumer needs by expanding its business scope?
For Chinese brands, going overseas is a huge opportunity, but we must also recognize the risks and challenges behind the opportunities.
For Konka, if it wants to stick to the price-performance ratio route, it is crucial to understand consumer demand. Only by starting from the actual needs of consumers and providing products and services that far exceed their expectations can the concept of price-performance ratio be deeply rooted in people's hearts.
In fact, it is more important for Konka to control the real needs of consumers in the small household appliances category than in other categories, because these are the products that consumers come into contact with most frequently in their daily lives. After getting them, the effect of the product experience can be seen on the spot. Therefore, how to understand some of their needs and their usage habits will be more urgent for Konka.
It is understood that Konka's current method of launching new products on the platform is to launch new products collectively in different lines from low to high for the same product, and obtain the test results through the sales of the corresponding products, and then summarize the common points from the tested good-selling products to conduct the next round of new product testing. Taking electric hair clippers as an example, Konka will launch new products including baby models, basic models, men's models, women's models, high-end models, etc. at one time, covering all aspects in order to understand consumer preferences.
In order to more effectively meet the needs of local consumers and provide products and services that Konka is capable of, Niu Weidong feels that the cooperation between Konka and Shopee can be even closer.
Because the platform has data support of sufficient scale, it can grasp consumer needs more accurately through big data analysis and research. Sellers and brands can then give full play to the advantages of production, manufacturing and research and development based on these trends. Through this kind of cooperation, they can more accurately target the needs of consumers in various markets and provide matching services and products.
In order to better penetrate and settle in the Southeast Asian market, Konka's strategic plan is as follows:
1. Continue to improve Konka smart appliance products and provide better services to local consumers.
2. We will consider developing into multiple brands and multiple lines in the future, and provide exclusive customization for different audience groups.
Looking to the future, Konka's strategic planning
Nowadays, competition among enterprises in all walks of life in China is extremely fierce. Starting this year, more domestic big brands have frequently used various channels such as cross-border e-commerce and independent websites to seek development overseas.
In terms of product research, accumulation, and professionalism, traditional brands have the advantage of years of hard work in overseas markets. In recent years, global Internet e-commerce platforms such as Shopee have vigorously developed cross-border businesses in China, allowing Chinese brands to leverage the power of the platforms and making it easier for them to go overseas.
However, Konka believes that the excellent experience that traditional brands originally had when going overseas may instead become a burden. Therefore, when going overseas, brands must unload the burden, start with a novice's mentality, have awe of this market, and proceed step by step. This may allow them to go further.
Summarizing Konka's current overseas brand achievements, we can find that along the way, Konka seems to have made every choice correctly. It not only seized the opportunity to go overseas, but also successfully resolved the risks and challenges behind the opportunities.
Konka's success is not accidental. Simply put, Konka wins in industry judgment, because decades of experience have given it a more macro understanding of the market. But if we observe over a longer period of time, Konka's "winning chip" is actually that its original brand intention has never changed: insisting on taking the quality consumption route, and everything is centered on consumer demands.
Shopee is a leading cross-border e-commerce platform that connects consumers, brands and sellers in Asia and other high-growth markets, enabling everyone to shop and sell anytime, anywhere. In 2020, Shopee's total order volume reached 2.8 billion, a year-on-year increase of 132.8%.
If you want to join Shopee, you can click the link below to sign up for the summer training camp event specially tailored for novice sellers by Shopee in June this year. Registration link: http://shopeecampaign.mikecrm.com/C68eMBM
E-commerce platform Shopee Platform Konka | 
